The recent Just Stop Oil protests have sparked huge debate about protesting and whether motorway blockades cross a line for civil resistance. However, this is precisely the issue—why are we always concerned with the what, and never the why? Whatever you make of Just Stop Oil’s tactics, their message is far more important than any debate we could have over acceptable protest measures.
The demands made by Just Stop Oil are clear. The environmental activists demand that the UK government ban all new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, including the 130 which are already planned. Anyone who does not support this motion has cognitive dissonance. The Paris Agreement of 2015 seemed to be a breakthrough moment where the world’s governments agreed to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. However, current fossil fuel projects plan to produce over twice the amount of fossil fuels which are compatible with this target up until 2030. This would mean 2.7 degrees of warming by 2100. A world which breaches the 1.5 degree limit would have catastrophic consequences for future generations. There will be rising threats to global food security, a third of the world’s population will live in an ‘unlivable’ environment, and we will have a ‘hothouse earth’.
We are already at the stage where the main subject of discussion at COP27 was not what we are going to do to lower emissions, but how much loss and damage should be paid to help the poorest countries deal with the inevitable catastrophe coming their way. Some countries such as Tuvalu are already in such a dire position that they are planning to become a digital nation in order to preserve its history, which will inevitably be wiped out due to coming climate disasters. Whilst the loss and damage fund is a big step forward for climate justice, it only goes to illustrate how far down the road to calamity we already are.
Everything held dear to us is at stake if we continue to burn fossil fuels. There is no debate over this, an overwhelming 97% of scientists agree that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Why then do we turn a blind eye to new oil and gas licences when they are death sentences for billions in the global south and will destroy the very fabric of society in the global north?
The answer to this question lies in the lack of attention that the mainstream media gives to climate change. Given that the survival of the planet is at stake, climate change should be at the top of both the media and the government’s agenda. Something has gone horribly wrong in our media, seeing that the Secretary General of the UN’s apocalyptic warning at COP27: “Humanity has a choice, cooperate or perish” garnered less attention than the tactics of the activists.
Rishi Sunak gave interviews to both Sky News and Channel 4 News just recently at the G20, and not once was he asked about the new oil and gas licences being granted in the north sea. Beth Rigby asked Sunak four times if he would apologise for another Prime Minister’s mistakes in a seven minute interview rather than push him on this. Given what we know will happen if we keep on burning fossil fuels, how topical this debate was in the UK at the time of the interviews and that Sunak himself had to be pressured to attend COP27, it is extraordinary that Sunak was not asked more about his thoughts on curbing climate change.
Not only does the media not hold the government accountable, they completely debase the debate around the issue. Popular media outlets such as Good Morning Britain and The Daily Mail have completely failed to have meaningful discussions about climate change, meaning less progress can be made. Whether it’s Ed Balls conflating climate protests with terrorism, Richard Madeley suggesting it might be “too expensive” to save the planet or Martin Robinson de-legitimising a protestor’s case because she had a wealthy upbringing, the debate is never conducted in a genuine way. Other outlets such as GB News have conducted the debate in such a ludicrous way that they have compared heatwave warnings with “Don’t Look Up”, a film which satirises society’s response to climate change.
If the media treated this issue with urgency then it would be far easier to hold world governments accountable and make significant change. Just Stop Oil protests have already made some progress, for example Lloyds Banking group have announced they will end all funding of new oil and gas developments as a result of the action. This is a company which invested £12.6 billion in the oil and gas sector since the Paris summit of 2015.
The good news is that the battle against climate change is not over, at the time of the Paris Agreement in 2015 global temperatures were expected to hit 3.5 degrees. Measures taken since then decreased this prediction to an increase of 2.7 degrees. Whilst the figure of 1.5 degrees is something we should do everything possible to avoid, we should not be so fatalistic about the challenges we face in order to reach that figure. Every tenth of a degree risks tens of millions more lives, as seen in a report on the differences between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees which have vast impacts on the severity of floods, droughts and heatwaves for future generations.
Therefore, it is imperative we are not so apathetic about climate change and do everything possible to limit warming as much as possible. This requires the media to treat climate protests differently and urge politicians to make decisions with our planet in mind. Until they do so, it is unlikely that civil resistance and protesting will have the needed effect. We need to stop talking about what protesters are doing, and start asking why they’re doing it.
Image credits: Matt Palmer via Unsplash